Hello lucky 13" AMD board owners, or the impatient ones who wait their batch, or those who are looking for each news about the FW16!!
Can you please share you experience and knowledge about the transition to an AMD CPU?
Is a fresh Windows 10 or 11 install recommended, and why?
Or is it possible to keep a previous installation by directly pluggin my SSD? Will I have side effects?
Thanks!
Windows 11 is recommended for all Framework laptops (excl. 11th gen), running 10 on them can cause you to run into driver issues (which is fixable but unsupported). You can keep an existing install, just make sure you install the new drivers.
I received an email from Framework right before my mainboard was delivered. You may also get one like this if you also buy the mainboard or upgrade kit, but here is what they said there:
they also linked this guide
Seems like if you already have Windows 11, you can just run the driver bundle before and after. I was on Windows 10, and wanted to refresh my install anyway, so I installed Windows 11 fresh after upgrading.
Another important thing to note is that when you do the mainboard swap, your Windows key may still be tied to your old mainboard. I had my key ready to retype in to reavtivate, but I’ve seen others have issues when they don’t have the key. If you got a DIY version with Windows the key was emailed to you, but if you got a prebuilt, I believe that Framework uses an OEM key that cannot be transferred across hardware, so you may need to buy a new one.
I attempted to keep my 11th gen Windows 10 install when swapping mainboards to an AMD, and ultimately wasn’t successful. The machine booted after installing the driver bundle and upgrading, but I wasn’t able to get Bitlocker and the TPM fingerprint unlock to work, and there was a long list of driverless devices listed in Device Manager that I wasn’t able to remedy. An upgrade attempt after the swap failed too, as it could not detect the TPM.
A fresh install of W11 went flawlessly once I stopped fighting it.
Thanks! 
I read somewhere that a refresh install would be optimal for better performances. But it’s probably a matter of returning to a simpler windows install than a matter of drivers.
